


A Ghost In The Palm Of A Ghost

by hypocretin



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-10 19:38:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12918864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypocretin/pseuds/hypocretin





	A Ghost In The Palm Of A Ghost

                                                                                      Perfect dark. Perfect silence. A dreamy, unblinking quiet that fades

                                                                            away from the wake of the world. Lost of the child’s warmth, she is all  


                                                                            but altogether gone. A knot without a rope to hang herself on, she thinks.  


                                                                            She would be furious, were she not herself so spent beneath the sorrow  


                                                                            their task demanded of them. How could she resent so young a creature,  


                                                                            cast in this unlikely war in so fleeting and thankless a role, when she  


                                                                            herself tired beneath the bitter burden of it?

     

                                                                                      So, she waits. Alone in a realm of her own.

     

                                                                                      Their first parting is but for a day, a dearly needed respite for the  


                                                                            child to know and understand this dull pain with which they live. When  


                                                                            she finds herself again drifting in the empty darkness, though, it is by no  


                                                                            design of the girl’s. Where she once met anger, this time it is fear that  


                                                                            takes her. Yet no sooner is Duck’s presence lost that another’s hand  


                                                                            meets and draws her up from the stair. Warm and… familiar, somehow.

     

                                                                                      Recognition seizes her with a cold and uncaring hand. For a  


                                                                            moment, she balks, consumed with a powerful disbelief that tangles up  


                                                                            in her mind, twisting with like likeness of a knife. Had she a body to turn  


                                                                            from him, she surely would, this shadow of his knight.

     

                                                                                      What pain! What sadness! How desperately must she desire the  


                                                                            touch of something that no longer exists, to imagine this stranger’s hand  


                                                                            his own?

     

                                                                                      But then… does she not also no longer exist?

     

                                                                                      He is dead, and she is dead. Yet, here she lies: A ghost in the 

                                                                            palm of a ghost.

     

                                                                                      Was she not meant to be the prince’s hope? Should she not, then,  


                                                                            cant her head toward every sanguine idea? A little emboldened, she oars  


                                                                            herself from despairing long enough to listen after the shadow’s voice,   


                                                                            unable to stay the comforting tides that wash against her at the feeling  


                                                                            of something familiar. 

     

                                                                                      Familiar… yet not quite familiar. She listens as the shadow’s mouth  


                                                                            gives voice to thoughts that stir in her own mind; ideas of souls and  


                                                                            purpose. Hearing him speak with such certainty and uncertainty against  


                                                                            his guardian, she finds her reluctance abrading.

     

                                                                                      Not his shadow, but no longer the knight himself exactly, either.  


                                                                            She is sure of it, or so she chooses to be.

 

     

                                                                                      When he collapses out in the garden, then, this not-quite knight,  


                                                                            she grants him every gentle thought she has. As he weeps, she longs  


                                                                            to lend him words of solace. Of comfort. But hope is rarely meant to be  


                                                                            gentle, and besides, she is not his hope to give herself to. 

 

     


End file.
